


Untitled

by flashindie



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:51:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, it wasn’t unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled

The thing is, it wasn’t unexpected. 

It wasn’t unexpected, but neither was Ryan’s reaction and Spencer wakes up to a hotel suite he doesn’t remember falling asleep in, the shower running and an empty bed across the other side of the room. There’s a message on his phone from his mom and all it says is, _plz call me ASAP._

Spencer doesn’t even have to guess.

The blankets on the bed hit the floor at the same time as his feet and the matching _thud_ sounds like the start of something bigger than right now, better than what Spencer has the energy for. He’s staggering across the carpet of the room, picking up tiny bits of fluff between his toes and when he reaches for the door to the bathroom it falls open like a trap door in a house of horrors.

The pitter-patter of water on tiles (rain against the window glass) is almost distracting, but Ryan’s silhouette is blatant, distorted and when Spencer throws back the sickly plastic curtain, Ryan, he doesn’t even look up. 

Ryan’s sitting on the floor of the shower, ass to the tiles, naked and ridiculously small. His legs are drawn tight to his chest and his arms circle his knees, fingers clench over his bony limbs and something in Spencer constricts, something hurts and fuck, Spencer’s been here before, had so much practice, _too much_ and it’s not ever, ever enough. 

He just stands though, stock-still and someone’s turned off the sound because the white noise blaring between Spencer’s ears, inside his head, it’s enough to make him lean in, sit on the floor of the shower with Ryan, fully dressed and feeling only half stupid.

Spencer leans against the side, looks up until the water trails down his cheeks like tears or rain - neither of which are forthcoming.

“Dead,” Ryan says finally, and he pauses, moves his hands just low enough to draw patterns on the tiles with his fingers in the water. “Like, really fucking dead apparently.”

Spencer resists the urge to say know, I know this and Ryan blinks over, water droplets catching in his eyelashes. He’s always been skinny, but right now he looks fucking skeletal, all protruding limbs that stick out of him like pins in a wall. He’s not pretty, he’s a mess and Spencer shifts over until he’s sitting in front of Ryan, bigger body blocking the spray of the showerhead until Ryan shivers, a full-body quake like bait on a fishing line. 

“Come on,” he says, and he leans over until he has one of Ryan’s scrawny arms grasped in either of his hands and he lifts him, picks him up in a way that’s a mess of metaphor and reality and Spencer, he’s been doing this since he was fourteen ( _four_ ). He tugs Ryan out of the bathroom, both of them dripping over the hotel’s clean carpet and when he props Ryan on the bed, still naked and stupid looking, he figures clothes would be a good place to start.

Spencer heads to where Ryan’s suitcase is propped up in the corner of the room, big and open and he pulls out the first pair of sweats he can find, boxers and a shirt he’s pretty sure is his. By the time he gets back to the bed, Ryan’s still sitting up, only now has Spencer’s generic floral hotel sheet wrapped around his shoulders. He looks ridiculously tired and when Spencer waves about the clothes fisted in his hand, Ryan, he just lets go of the sheet and holds up his arms until Spencer drops the too-big t-shirt down over his head, pulls it down his arms and yeah, it’s definitely Spencer’s, can tell by the way it’s too wide in the shoulder’s and too long everywhere-else. 

Ryan’s pants are harder and Spencer squats on the floor and holds open the boxers for Ryan to step into, before doing the same for the sweats, pulls them up and doesn’t even pretend that he doesn’t notice where Ryan’s hipbones are sharp against his fingers, waist narrow and belly almost concave. He rubs a hand just below Ryan’s navel and kisses the side of his head, his cheekbone, just quick, once, on the lips. The half-smile Ryan gives is something Spencer can catch between his fingers, keep fisted in the palm of his hand and Ryan shoves, just lightly, and says, “You’ll get sick,” because right, probably, his clothes are still wet from the shower, cold now and sticking to his bones like a second skin, something he can shed and he does, staggers over to his own suitcase and pulls on a new skin, clean clothes. He fiddles with Ryan’s half-smile, still caught between his fingers and puts it in the pocket of his pyjama pants. 

“It’s eight in the morning,” Ryan says, and he watches as Spencer shuffles them both backwards, pushes Ryan back down and into the bed, beneath the blankets and their both still damp, neither have dried off properly but it’s…it’s nice, and Ryan maybe needs it right now, needs the cold to remind him that, that he _needs_. “We have to get up,” Ryan says. “Things to do.”

“Your dad is dead,” Spencer says. “You don’t have to do anything.”

Ryan pauses, lips parted and eyes half-lidded and Spencer lies down beside him, moves in close until he’s breathing down Ryan’s neck and Ryan, he just opens his mouth properly and says, “Promise?”

Spencer chews the inside of his cheek, buries his face further into the crook built by Ryan’s shoulder and neck and says, “You’ll feel better in the morning.” 

Ryan just, he sighs. “I hope so.”


End file.
